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Is the singularity near?

Once the singularity occurs, people won’t necessarily die (they can simply upgrade with cybernetic parts), and they could do just about anything they wanted to — provided it were physically possible and didn’t require too much energy, Hibbard said.

The past two singularities — the Agricultural and Industrial revolutions — led to a doubling in economic productivity every 1,000 and 15 years, respectively, said Robin Hanson, an economist at George Mason University in Washington, D.C., who is writing a book about the future singularity. But once machines become as smart as man, the economy will double every week or month.

This rapid pace of productivity would be possible because the main “actors” in the economy, namely people, could simply be replicated for whatever it costs to copy an intelligent-machine software into another computer.

That productivity spike may not be a good thing. For one, robots could probably survive apocalyptic scenarios that would wipe out humans.

“A society or economy made primarily of robots will not fear destroying nature in the same way that we should fear destroying nature,” Hanson said.

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This rapid pace of productivity would be possible because the main “actors” in the economy, namely people, could simply be replicated for whatever it costs to copy an intelligent-machine software into another computer.

Right. Because the ability to create a new doctor at the flip of a switch would be a bad thing. Especially a doctor that never gets tired, never has a bad day, never takes vacation, and never asks to be paid. Oh, the horror!